Stewart Platform

It's been a long time since I've posted here, and more has changed in my life than I can possibly fit into words, but here's a quick recap of what you missed in the last two years:

I transferred from Lehigh to Cornell University, mainly to allow me to spend more time with my twin brother.

I started a small business designing and selling small brushless quadcopters. Stay tuned for more on this in the near future.

I spent a summer doing hardware engineering at Amazon Prime Air.

Time permitting, I'd like to write more about each of these, as well as some of the cool school projects I've been working on, in the coming months. To start, here's a simplified version of a stewart platform that I worked on as a final project to my Microcontrollers class:

Our website and write-up for the project can be found here.

I also just found out that someone decided to write about the project on Hackaday as well:

https://hackaday.com/2017/12/27/balance-like-a-mountain-goat-on-this-simple-stewart-platform/

Cheers! Hopefully I can find some time to post more updates on here soon.

Shrike - HD Camera Mount Design and Testing

What?

I've spent the last few months designing a 3D printed camera mount for my quadcopter. It holds my Foxeer Legend HD camera and SD FPV camera, and protects all the electronics from the inevitable.

View post on imgur.com

Why?

The Shrike is a super lightweight, minimalist, x-shaped racing quadcopter frame. When built with the right components, it provides a ludicrous 11:1 thrust to weight ratio, and the symmetrical design offers nimble handling and the smallest possible size for 5" propellers. But the design doesn't include much space to mount a HD recording camera. And what's the point of zipping around the sky at 70 mph if I can't share my flights in glorious HD?

Project POD

Back in January, I brought my Morphite 155 quad-copter on a trip with my family to Nevada and Utah with the intent of exploring the beautiful landscapes from a birds-eye view. I had my first opportunity to take flight just outside the Valley of Fire state park. And what a flight it was! As I soared past sandstone and brush from the virtual cockpit of my palm-sized robotic flying steed, I was reminded of just how rewarding this hobby can be. Unfortunately, my first flight was also my last flight of the trip, as I crashed the little guy into a tree and broke a solder joint on the antenna, rendering the video feedback useless.

As much as I love building and flying my drones, I can't deny that they are fragile creatures. And flying without crashing would be about as interesting as playing a video game and staying at the spawn point. So I set out to make my drone as near-indestructible as possible.

The plan was simple - to build a 3D-printable enclosure to protect the electronics, and provide strain relief for the video transmitter's antenna. Armattan was nice enough to provide CAD files for the frame, making the job of modelling the machine digitally a whole lot easier. The first step was to measure and model all of the components and place them in a Solidworks assembly.

Nexus 5 Battery Capacity Upgrade

Google's Nexus 5 is a great phone running vanilla Android, but it could never really hold its own in the battery department. I "upgraded" to Samsung's Galaxy S6 a few months back, but I have found myself missing the stock Android experience, so when I found my old Nexus sitting unused in my desk I got to thinking. After reading a post on Reddit about fitting the battery from LG's G2 into the Nexus 5, I couldn't resist a little side project that could breathe new life into my old phone.

Ingredients:

• Google Nexus 5 phone
• LG G2 3000 battery
• Screwdriver
• Soldering equipment
• Dremel and grinding bit
• Masking tape

The stock Nexus 5 battery is 2300 mAh, whereas the G2's is 3000 mAh for about a 30% increase of capacity. Not bad, as long as we can make it fit!

The disassembly of the phone was pretty straightforward, just pop off the back plate and remove all visible screws.

New Mini Quadcopter (Morphite 155X FPV)

I've been flying my Morphite 180 racing quadcopter for a few months after building it over the summer. FPV is new to me, but it's been tons of fun so far! Here's some DVR footage:

 I decided to do some upgrades to it (stay tuned for more info), and decided to build something new with the leftover parts. Say hi to the 180's younger brother, the 155x:

Old vs. New

Lehigh University Drone Club!!!

After spending this summer building and flying a small RC racing quadcopter, I couldn't suppress the urge to bring Drone Racing to my friends at school. Enter LU Drone Club:

While we're still waiting on official school approval for the club, don't hesitate to contact us if you are interested in drones, want to learn how to build one of your own, or have any other questions. We will soon be starting weekly meetups for Drone Club on the Lehigh Mountaintop campus. Stay tuned for more information.

First Day of Classes

Today is my first day of classes at Lehigh University! I'm excited to be done with orientation and to finally start my classes. I'm not excited about waking up for 8AM classes M/W/Th/F. I'd love to write more, but I'll be late to CSE 002.